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Coins, Currency, and Medals

The Museum possesses one of the largest numismatic collections in the world. The collections include over 1 million objects, comprising coins, medals, decorations, and pieces of paper money. Among the many great rarities here are some of the world’s oldest coins, created 2,700 years ago. But the collection also includes the latest innovations in electronic monetary exchange, as well as beads, wampum, and other commodities once used as money. A special strength lies in artifacts that illustrate the development of money and medals in the United States. The American section includes many rare and significant coins, such as two of three known examples of the world's most valuable coin, the 1933 double eagle $20 gold piece.

In 1848, the largest single gold rush in history was just getting under way in California. This event triggered a mass migration of fortune hunters from around the world. The territory had only recently passed into American hands as an outcome of U.S. victory in the Mexican War. The new California military governor Col. R. B. Mason sent 230 ounces of native bullion to the Secretary of War, who in turn passed the gold on to the Mint.

Much of this first shipment went into large, honorific medals Congress authorized for the winning American generals in the war, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. Scott's medal is in the Smithsonian Collection. The rest of the gold was used to make "quarter eagles," or 2½ dollar gold pieces. These became some of the most legendary coins in American numismatic history.

The basic design was standard: the head of Liberty was on one side, a somewhat bellicose eagle on the other. The mint had been striking quarter eagles with these designs for nearly a decade. But closer scrutiny showed that these coins had one odd feature: above the eagle on the reverse, the initials "CAL." These were added by means of a punch.

Precisely 1,389 quarter eagles marked with the CAL stamp were made. Less than 200 still exist. They bear poignant witness to the colorful history of the American West.

The Continental Dollar was the first pattern struck for the United States of America. Most specimens were minted in pewter, but also known are three in silver and a dozen or so in brass. It is thought that the distinctive designs were suggested by Benjamin Franklin. The reverse design, featuring linked rings, was a plea for insurgent unity, something that the philosopher-scientist constantly brought to people's attention.

The obverse sundial motif with its Latin motto ("Fugio") is also characteristic of Franklin. The design is a rebus, and its component parts may be read as "time flies, so mind your business." This and other pewter specimens were apparently struck for the inspection of members of Congress, who would have to pass enabling legislation before the coinage could proceed.

Elisha Gallaudet, a New York engraver, was the person responsible for translating Franklin's concepts into metal. It is thought that he struck the coins at a makeshift private mint in Freehold, New Jersey. Earlier issues of Continental currency had included a bill worth a dollar. This practice was suspended in the spring of 1776, apparently because the Congress intended for a new, one-dollar coin to take its place.

Based on the Spanish-American piece of eight, the new Continental dollar was to serve as the linchpin of the entire monetary arrangement. The plan failed. The patriots were unable to obtain sufficient silver for the coinage, and by the time the enabling legislation had been passed, the value of Continental currency had begun its descent, emerging as almost worthless only a few years later. Tying a bullion coin to a depreciating currency was obviously a mistake.

When the Great Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the California coastal town of Pismo Beach picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange. The pismo is a species of clam with a very thick shell, then found in large numbers along the California coast and prized as a food.

A town named after clams suggests an adequate supply of their shells. Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the merchants and officials of Pismo Beach (who were often the same people) decided to make the best of a bad situation, and to make the humble pismo shell into an object of trade. This they did. The Chamber of Commerce and no fewer than eleven merchants issued clamshell scrip. Restwell Cabins issued "notes" in three denominations: twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and one dollar.

The larger the amount, the larger the shell. The issue may have been partly intended as a spoof, or for sale to tourists, in the manner of German notgeld around 1920. Redemption would never be a problem because collectors would wish to keep such pieces in their cabinets or trade them with their friends. But it was also intended partly as a real, if unique, circulating medium. The Restwell Cabins issue bore the motto, "IN GOD WE TRUST."

Each piece was numbered, and each piece was signed on the front and on the back. As with the stamp notes of the Midwest, it was necessary to sign each clamshell on the back in order to keep it in circulation. No formal requirements may have existed, but informal pressure certainly would have endorsed the practice.

This specimen is dated March 8, 1933. This was in the middle of Roosevelt's national banking holiday, and it is exactly the time when we might expect to see people take money into their own hands.

Some rarities are accidental, like the 1927 Denver double eagle. Others are contrived, beginning their lives as scams. The 1913 Liberty head five-cent piece, or nickel, falls into this category. Were it not for that date, even an advanced collector would hardly give it a second thought. But the date is different, and a very clever set of circumstances ensured that the coins bearing it became memorable, twentieth-century legends.

The first Liberty head nickels were struck in 1883, their designer the prolific if uninspired Charles E. Barber. Millions were made over the next three decades. The design was to be retired at the end of 1912, and that is when things began to become interesting. Despite orders to the contrary, five new Liberty head nickels were struck clandestinely, presumably at the beginning of 1913.

Spirited out of the Mint, they came into the possession of one Samuel W. Brown, of North Tonawanda, New York. He eventually became the town's mayor, but earlier had served as Storekeeper of the Mint. At the end of 1919, he placed an advertisement in the Numismatist, offering to pay $500 each for 1913 Liberty head nickels. Later he raised the offer to $600.

He already had all the coins, so what was he up to? He was making a legend, preparatory to making a profit! He displayed the coins at the following ANA convention (August 1920), finally selling the pieces to a Philadelphia dealer a few years later.

At this point, San Antonio coin dealer B. Max Mehl entered the picture, also making offers to buy any 1913 Liberty nickels. That did it: everyone from ten-year-old boys to sophisticated collectors began checking their change, hoping to come across another 1913. No one ever did, but the coin's legendary status was assured.

As early as 1850, agitation began in Congress for the establishment of a San Francisco branch of the United States Mint. This action was blocked by people from New York-who wanted a branch in their own state-and from Louisiana and Georgia-who argued that any California operation would represent unfair competition to the branch mints in New Orleans and Dahlonega.

The opposition won, and San Francisco went without a branch mint for another four years. But it did get an odd sort of hybrid, the United States Assay Office of Gold, striking an odd sort of money-a gigantic-fifty-dollar ingot that also did duty as a coin.

In addition to the Assay Office, other California coiners toyed with the idea of striking fifty-dollar gold pieces. One group, headed by J. G. Kellogg and G. F. Richter went so far as to have dies for circular slugs prepared and a dozen or so proofs struck from those dies.

But by the time the project had gone forward that far, the federal branch Mint at San Francisco was finally coming into full production. Soon California private gold coinage, no matter how large or small the denominations, became irrelevant.

The first silver dollars-and the first silver half dollars-were delivered on the same day, October 15, 1794. Chief coiner Henry Voigt was responsible for 5,300 half dollars that day, and they apparently went into commerce as soon as they were released.

The dollars were another matter. Precisely 1,758 of them were coined on the fifteenth, and they were immediately delivered to Mint Director David Rittenhouse for distribution to dignitaries as souvenirs.

The VIPs were not impressed with what they saw. The dollars were struck on the largest press the mint possessed, but the machine was originally intended for cents and half dollars. The only way it had proved adequate for striking the copper pattern was by striking the piece twice.

The impressions it gave with a single blow were weak, a situation not helped by the fact that the obverse die was damaged early on and had to be polished down along one part of its circumference. This resulted in its making an even weaker impression. So the new federal dollar was not a brilliant success. But it was a first-and sometimes that's success enough.

Precisely 1,758 of these silver dollars, the first ever minted for circulation by the United States, were coined on October 15, 1794. All were immediately delivered to the Mint Director for distribution to dignitaries as souvenirs. The largest press the mint possessed still was not big enough to give a strong impression with a single blow, hence the weak relief on these coins.

When the Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the coastal town of Pismo Beach, California picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange. The pismo is a species of clam with a very thick shell, then found in large numbers along the California coast and prized as a food.

A town named after the bivalves suggests an adequate supply of their shells. Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the merchants and officials of Pismo Beach (who were often the same people) decided to make the best of a bad situation, and to make the humble clam shell into an object of trade. This they did. The Chamber of Commerce and no fewer than eleven merchants issued clamshell scrip.

Each piece was numbered, and each piece was signed on the front and on the back. As with the stamp notes of the Midwest, it was necessary to sign each clamshell on the back in order to keep it in circulation. No formal requirements may have existed, but informal pressure certainly would have endorsed the practice.

Restwell Cabins issued "notes" in three denominations: twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and one dollar. The larger the amount, the larger the shell. The issue may have been partly intended as a spoof, or for sale to tourists, in the manner of German notgeld around 1920. Redemption would never be a problem because collectors would want to keep these pieces in their cabinets or trade them with their friends.

But it was also intended partly as a real, if unique, circulating medium. The Restwell Cabins issue bore the motto, "IN GOD WE TRUST." Each piece was numbered, and each was signed on the front and on the back. This specimen is dated March 8, 1933. This was in the middle of Roosevelt's national banking holiday, and it is exactly the time when we might expect to see people take money into their own hands.

Among the most alluring coins of antiquity was the Syracuse dekadrachm. Its artistry (designed by Kimon and Euinatos, among others)and incredibly high relief have captivated coin lovers for two and a half millennia. How did the Greeks, who worked only by hand, achieve such levels of beauty?

One of those attracted by coins such as this was a dynamic American president, Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's record as a political reformer is well known. What is less recognized is his role in reforming American money. When the President compared contemporary American coins to Classical masterpieces such as this dekadrachm, he became indignant. Why, he wondered, did the powerful, young nation he was leading tolerate its pedestrian gold and silver coinage? Why couldn't American money be more artistic? Why couldn't it be as beautiful as ancient coinage? Why couldn't it feature dramatic relief, so that every facet of its design was clear for all to see? Roosevelt acted on his thought by enlisting sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to design what many regard as the most beautiful American coin ever produced, the 1907 twenty-dollar gold piece.

As early as 1650, the colony of Massachusetts Bay was a commercial success. But an inadequate supply of money put its future development in jeopardy. England was not inclined to send gold and silver coins to the colonies, for they were in short supply in the mother country.

Taking matters into their own hands, Boston authorities allowed two settlers, John Hull and Robert Sanderson, to set up a mint in the capital in 1652. The two were soon striking silver coinage-shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Nearly all of the new coins bore the same date: 1652.

This was the origin of America's most famous colonial coin, the pine tree shilling. The name comes from the tree found on the obverse. It may symbolize one of the Bay Colony's prime exports, pine trees for ships' masts. Massachusetts coinage not only circulated within that colony, but was generally accepted throughout the Northeast, becoming a monetary standard in its own right.

Why the 1652 date? Some believe that it was intended to commemorate the founding of the Massachusetts mint, which did occur in 1652. Others believe the choice was a reflection of larger political events. Coinage was a prerogative of the King. In theory, these colonists had no right to strike their own coins, no matter how great their need.

But in 1652, there was no king. King Charles had been beheaded three years previously, and England was a republic. The people in Massachusetts may have cleverly decided to put that date on their coinage so that they could deny any illegality when and if the monarchy were reestablished.

This "1652" shilling is likely to have been minted around 1670. In 1682, the Hull/Sanderson mint closed after closer royal scrutiny of the operation.

To process the gold and silver being mined in new locations, the federal government passed legislation to open three new branch mints in 1835: in Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; and New Orleans, Louisiana. The first two would only strike coins from local gold. The third would mint coins from silver as well as from gold, because those two metals were pouring into the Crescent City from Latin America.

All three branch facilities opened their doors in 1838. The New Orleans Mint was a success from the very beginning. The other two suffered growing pains but finally reached full production in the 1850s. All three closed during the Civil War, but New Orleans eventually reopened in 1879 and remained a major player in the country's monetary system until the first decade of the twentieth century. Charlotte and Dahlonega stayed closed.

A way was sought to distinguish the products of these new mints from those of the original one. Philadelphia had never marked its coins-there had been no need, with no other coiners in existence. But now a way was devised to show which coins came from where.

A mint mark, consisting of a single letter, would be placed on each of the products of the branch Mints-an O for New Orleans, a D for Dahlonega, and a C for Charlotte. The mint marks briefly appeared on the coins' obverse, but then they were relegated to the reverse, where they remained.

Collectors call the 1838 Charlotte half eagle a "one-year type": coins of this design with the obverse mint mark were only struck during that single year. There were about seventeen thousand of them, compared with over a quarter million at Philadelphia.